H. OF R.]

The Tariff-Salt.

[MAY, 1830.

The resolution being read, Mr. T. moved that it be laid on the table, and be printed.

Mr. POTTER hoped the gentleman would withdraw his motion, and allow the resolution to be now considered.

Dickinson, Doddridge, Duncan, Dwight, Earll, Ells- Resolved, That the Committee of Ways and Means worth, George Evans, Joshua Evans, Edward be instructed to prepare and report a bill, in conEverett, Horace Everett, Findlay, Finch, Ford, For-formity with the foregoing resolution. ward, Fry, Gilmore, Gorham, Grennell, Hawkins, Hemphill, Hodges, Howard, Hughes, Hunt, Huntington, Ihrie, W. W. Irvin, Thomas Irwin, Isacks, Jennings, Johns, Richard M. Johnson, Kendall, Kennon, Kincaid, Perkins King, Adam King, Lecompte, Letcher, Lyon, Magee, Mallary, Martindale, Lewis Maxwell, Thomas Maxwell, McCreery, Mercer, Miller, Mitchell, Muhlenberg, Norton, Pearce, Pettis, Pierson, Powers, Ramsey, Reed, Richardson, Rose, Russel, Scott, Shields, Sill, S. A. Smith, Ambrose Spencer, Sprigg, Stanberry, Standifer, Sterigere, Henry H. Storrs, William L. Storrs, Strong, Sutherland, Swann, Swift, Taylor, Test, John Thomson, Vançe, Varnum, Vinton, Washington, Whittlesey, Edward D. White, Wickliffe,

Yancey, Young-115.

NAYS.-Messrs. Anderson, Archer, John S. Barbour, Chilton, Claiborne, Conner, Crocheron, Davenport, Deberry, Gordon, Hammons, Harvey, Cave Johnson, Lea, Loyall, Martin, McIntire, Polk, Rencher, Augustine H. Shepperd, Richard Spencer, Taliaferro, Wayne, Weeks, Williams-24.

THURSDAY, May 13.

Salt.

Mr. TALIAFERRO rose, and said, he asked of the House a favor which he had never asked before, and which he had never refused to any other member who requested it. It was that the House would grant its unanimous consent for him to introduce a resolution, and have it printed.

Inquiry being made as to the nature of the resolution,

Mr. T. said it was of a nature which lay at the door of every man, woman, and child in the nation. It was of the nature of salt. Leave being granted, Mr. T. handed to the Chair the following resolution:

Whereas salt is an article which enters into the

Mr. TALIAFERRO did not intend to ask for its consideration at this time, but, at the request of the gentleman from North Carolina, he would withdraw his motion to lay it on the table.

Mr. POTTER then demanded the question of consideration.

Mr. IRVIN, of Ohio, reminded Mr. T. of his promise, if the resolution were received, to ask that it be laid on the table, and not now

considered.

Mr. TALIAFERRO immediately rose, and asked as a favor of Mr. POTTER that he would withdraw his motion, and permit the resolution to be laid on the table; and he begged pardon for having for a moment forgot the pledge which he had given, in first yielding to the request of Mr. POTTER; he regretted it, and hoped that gentleman would permit him to redeem his pledge.

Mr. POTTER accordingly withdrew his motion; and then, on motion of Mr. TALIAFERRO, the resolution was laid on the table.

The Tariff.

The engrossed bill "to amend the act in alteration of the several acts laying duties on imports," was read the third time, and the question stated, "Shall the bill pass?

Mr. HALL, of North Carolina, said, he had not heard distinctly the title, and wished to hear it. He had understood the bill to be a bill for enforcing the collection of the revenue; he wished always to call things by their right names. He had never given a tariff vote, nor daily consumption of every human being in our did he ever intend to do so; but, sir, said Mr. country, as a matter of primary and unavoidable H., I should certainly do so were I to vote for necessity, and is, to a very great extent, procured this bill. This is a bill, professedly and in at a high price, compared with the cost of producing it, which too often exposes the poor consumer fact, to enforce the tariff law of 1828. The to the grinding exactions of the vender and monopo- original bill to which this is proposed as an list of the article. Influenced by such, and by other amendment or substitute, was intended for the obviously sound considerations, Congress never has, same purpose. And why is the amendment, or except under circumstances of great and emergent the bill itself, proposed or required? Evidently fiscal necessity, imposed a duty on salt. And because the tariff of 1828 is defective is inwhereas, since the necessity for which the existing efficient. This bill is to supply the defect-to tax on salt was imposed (after five years' entire ex-give the efficiency desired. It is, therefore, to emption of it from duty) in the years 1813 and 1816, has been successfully met and overcome by the patient bearing and faithful payment of this and the other taxes by the people; and the Government no longer needs the revenue arising from the existing tax on salt:

Resolved, That, from and after the 30th day of September next, the duty imposed on all salt imported into the United States, and the territories thereof, shall be ten cents the measured bushel; and that, from and after the 30th day of September, 1831, salt may be imported as aforesaid, free of any duty whatever.

be the efficient cause-the real causa causans of any additional effect produced by the tariff of 1828, whether for good or evil. As, therefore, I never did give a tariff vote, and as this bill is virtually, and to all practical purposes, the tariff law of 1828, I shall not vote for it. I am aware that, in regard to amendments of a certain character, I differ from many here in my construction of the lex parliamentaria. All alterations, sir, are not amendments. This is one instance in point. All propositions purporting to be amendments are not really so.

WEDNESDAY, May 19.

[H. OF R.

When the primary law was presented to me, I | Lewis, Lumpkin, Maxwell, McCoy, McIntire, Polk, abhorred it as much as nature abhors a vacuum. Rencher, Roane, William B. Shepard, Augustine H. If a bill was before us, bad in its nature, and a Shepperd, Richard Spencer, Taliaferro, Trezvant, substitute under the name of amendment of- Tucker, Wayne, Weeks, Williams, Wingate―40. fered, so garnished (though containing the So the bill was passed, and sent to the Sensame principles) as to make it more easily swal-ate for concurrence. lowed, it would, in point of principle, be no amendment, but a mere substitute, in form. Where an amendment offered has the effect of striking off a portion, by which the actual evil is lessened, this is both an alteration and amendment; but not so the striking out one evil, and inserting the same in effect. I have never suffered myself to be thus caught by the name of amendment. Sir, I should not have voted for this bill had the salt been retained in it-it was not to my taste, however well salted. I would as soon have voted for the bill itself, called Mallary's bill, because I could not have been made to vote for either.

Repeal of Duty on Salt.

and Means, reported the following bill:
Mr. MODUFFIE, from the Committee of Ways

"Be it enacted, &c. That the duty on salt be fifteen cents per bushel of fifty-six pounds, from the 31st of December, 1831; and, after that time, ten cents a bushel, and no more."

The bill was read the first time; when Mr. EARLL, of New York, objected to the second reading, which motion, by the rules of the House, was tantamount to a motion to re

Mr. TUCKER, of South Carolina, entered pretty largely into a statement also of his objections to the bill, and to the protecting sys-ject the bill. tem. He was followed by

Mr. CHILTON, of Kentucky, who argued earnestly at some length on the same side, and concluded with a motion to lay the bill on the table, which was negatived.

Mr. CAMBRELENG briefly stated why he should vote for the bill, notwithstanding his repugnance to some of its provisions, which he deemed improper, but which he relied on the Senate to rectify.

The question was then put on the passage of the bill, and decided in the affirmative by the following vote:

YEAR-Messrs. Angel, Armstrong, Arnold, Bailey, Barber, Bartley, Bates, Baylor, Beekman, John Blair, Bockee, Boon, Borst, Brown, Buchanan, Burges, Butman, Cahoon, Cambreleng, Chandler, Childs, Clark, Coleman, Condict, Cooper, Cowles, Hector Craig, Robert Craig, Crane, Crawford, Creighton, Crowninshield, Daniel, John Davis, Denny, De Witt, Dickinson, Doddridge, Duncan, Dwight, Earll, Ellsworth, George Evans, Joshua Evans, Edward Everett, Horace Everett, Findlay, Finch, Forward, Fry, Gilmore, Grennell, Hawkins, Hemphill, Hodges, Hoffman, Howard, Hughes, Hunt, Huntington, Ihrie, Ingersoll, Irvin, Irwin, Isacks, Jennings, Johns, Richard M. Johnson, Kendall, Kennon, Kincaid, Perkins King, Lecompte, Letcher, Lyon, Magee, Mallary, Martindale, L. Maxwell, McCreery, Mercer, Mitchell, Monell, Muhlenberg, Norton, Overton, Pearce, Pettis, Pierson, Powers, Ramsey, Randolph, Reed, Richardson, Rose, Scott, Shields, Semmes, Sill, Smith, Ambrose Spencer, Sprigg, Stanberry, Standifer, Sterigere, Stephens, Henry R. Storrs, William L. Storrs, Strong, Sutherland, Swann, Swift, Taylor, Test, Thomson, Tracy, Vance, Varnum, Verplanck, Vinton, Washington, Whittlesey, Campbell P. White, Edward D. White, Wickliffe, Yancey, Young

After a few remarks by Mr. MILLER,

Mr. DAVIS, of Massachusetts, expressed briefly his objections to the bill, and concluded by moving to postpone the bill to the next session of Congress, with the view, if his motion prevailed, of moving a call on the Secretary of the Treasury, to collect certain information, which Mr. D. deemed necessary to enable Congress to act discreetly on so important a subject.

Mr. CHILTON called for the yeas and nays. Mr. P. P. BARBOUR moved the previous question.

the Chair overruled.
Mr. HOFFMAN rose to a point of order, which

The call for the previous question being seconded,

Mr. POWERS, of New York, moved to lay the bill on the table; and the yeas and nays being demanded by Mr. CONNER, they were taken, and the motion to lay on the table lost: yeas 83, nays 102.

The previous question being then carried by 110 to 72,

The main question was put, "Shall the bill be rejected? and was negatived: yeas 85,

nays 103. Of course,
The bill was ordered to a second reading.*

The grave error of this bill was in not providing for the reduction of the fishing bounties and allowances in proportion to the reduction of the salt duty on which they were founded. That error, then so grave, has become more so since, being followed in subsequent reductions of the salt duty, until the bounties and allowances have nearly lost their foundation, and become almost naked bounties from the Treasury. In every act laying or raising the duty on salt, the fishing bounties and allowances were laid with it, NAYS.-Messrs. Anderson, Archer, John S. Bar- and rose with it; and when the duty was totally abolished bour, Philip P. Barbour, Barringer, Chilton, Clai- in Mr. Jefferson's administration, (March 3d, 1807,) the bounborne, Clay, Conner, Crockett, Crocheron, Daven-ties and allowances were also entirely abolished-both done port, Deberry, Desha, Drayton, Dudley, Gordon, in the same act-the salt duty abolished in the first section, Hammons, Harvey, Cave Johnson, Lea, Lent, Loyall, and the bounties and allowances in the second.

-127.

H. OF R.]

THURSDAY, May 20.

Repeal of Duty on Salt.

Repeal of Duty on Salt.

The bill reported yesterday, for reducing the duty on salt, being read a second time,

Mr. KING, of New York, moved that the bill be committed to the Committee of the whole

House.

Mr. MCDUFFIE opposed this course, as merely going to produce delay and a defeat of the bill, which, if there was a majority favorable to the object, should be acted on immediately to effect its passage this session.

Mr. INGERSOLL moved that the Committee of the Whole be instructed to amend the bill, by adding thereto the following section:

[MAY, 1830. branches of our foreign commerce? It stands on the list next to England and France in amount; and strike out the articles of cotton and tobacco which go to these countries, and it will exceed our trade with both nations. Nay, sir, as a market for our breadstuffs, it is more valuable to us than all Europe. It is, too, a trade in which every section of this country is deeply interested-it has no sectional bearing. It takes, in large quantities, the rice of the South, the lumber of North Carolina, the grain and beef of the West which descend the Mississippi, and find there almost their only foreign market-the flour of the Middle States, the corn meal, lumber, and live stock of New England. Besides this, immense quantities of our manufactured articles find an outlet there; not those manufactures which were noxious to some parts of this country, but those which are produced in the workshops of our mechanics in every State of the Union-such as hats, leather, carriages, shoes, harnesses, soap, candles, and

"From and after the 30th September, 1830, the duty on molasses shall be five cents per gallon, and no more; and from and after that time, a drawback be allowed on all spirits distilled in this country from foreign molasses, on the exportation thereof to any foreign country, the same as was allowed be-cabinet furniture. A trade like this, said Mr. fore the tariff of 19th of May, 1828."

I., is one of the last that should be shackled. We impose heavy duties on European goods, because we cannot barter away our breadstuffs or agricultural products for them but here is a market which offers to take every thing that you will send-it invites to it every interest that can be named. Why then cripple it by an ungenerous regulation of your own; and why visit your heaviest tax upon the humblest article which goes into the consumption of the poorest people of the country?

Mr. I. said, if there was one article on which the tariff of 1828 operated unjustly, it was that which he now sought to relieve. The injustice of the double duty imposed on molasses, in 1828, would be very generally acknowledged, and by none more frankly than those by whose votes the increase was effected. No man now would deny, indeed, it had already been distinctly admitted on this floor, that molasses was loaded with a heavy duty, at the period to which he alluded, for the purpose of rendering Mr. I. said he would say a few words as to the tariff odious. It was hoped by the South- the proposed reduction of the duty on salt, as ern gentlemen who voted it in, that the bill he might not have another opportunity to give would be thus drugged by too heavy a dose to his reasons for the votes he had given, or go down. In that they were disappointed, and should give, on that question. The salt trade he was glad to see a disposition, which had of this country had not been correctly reprebeen expressed on a late occasion, by one of sented. We have heard much of the salt tax, those who was in the vote, to undo what had as bearing severely and peculiarly on the poor: in this respect failed to answer the object in- | and so far as that was the case, he could go as tended. Mr. I. felt more solicitude on this sub-far as any man in extending relief. But there ject, at the present time, from having recently never was a time, even when salt was duty examined with care the report from the Treas-free, that it could be had cheaper than it now ury Department in regard to the commerce and navigation of the country for the year past. He found in that document that our trade with Cuba, the island from whence our greatest importations come, had declined nearly a million of dollars during the past year from what it had usually been. The cause of this decline was principally to be attributed, as he learnt from a most intelligent resident in that island, to the fact that, under our present heavy duty upon molasses, taken in connection with the expense of freights and casks, the islanders could not make sales of the article to us to any extent; and they now actually spread over their land, and use as manure, immense quantities of molasses, which they would gladly exchange for the lumber and breadstuffs of our country, if we would but let the trade go on. Are gentlemen aware, said Mr. I., that the trade with Cuba is one of the most valuable

can, even on the seaboard; and never so cheap in the interior, near the extensive salt works which have grown up under the operation of the existing duty. The bulk of our importation of salt, and on which most of the duty operates, is not the coarse West India salt used to pack provisions, and which is consumed principally by the poorer citizens; but the refined, or brown salt, as it is called, which we import from Liverpool, or other ports of Great Britain. The value of foreign salt imported during the last year, as appears by the Treasury returns, amounted to seven hundred and fourteen thousand six hundred and eighteen dollars, of which four hundred and sixty-seven thousand two hundred and thirteen dollars was imported, not from Turk's Island, or from any West India port, but from England and Ireland. This kind is imported principally in its refined and manufactured state, for the tables

MAY, 1830.]

Culture of Silk.

[H. OF R.

of the rich, and is as fair a subject for revenue | York, a week or two ago, for printing ten as any one that can be named. He should be thousand copies of Mr. Rush's report on the opposed to reducing the duty on this refined culture of silk. article; but would cheerfully reduce the duty on the coarse and strong West India or Turk's Island salt, because that was used by the poor, and goes largely into the agricultural operations of the country. He would reduce this, and leave the other untouched, for the same reason that he would reduce the duty on molasses and leave sugar untouched; in other words, he would lighten the tax from those who are least able to pay it, and let the burden rest on those who use the most expensive, or what are generally deemed the most luxurious articles. Should the amendment which he now offered prevail, he pledged himself to follow it up by another, making a discrimination on salt, that he thought would be acceptable to every part of the House.

Mr. TUCKER, for the purpose of bringing on a discussion upon the bill by itself, moved the previous question; which motion being seconded by a majority, and the previous question being sustained by a vote, by yeas and nays, of 98 to 88,

The main question was then put, viz: "Shall the bill be engrossed, and read a third time? and was decided in the affirmative by the following vote: yeas 103, nays 88.

FRIDAY, May 21.

Molasses and Rum.

Mr. MCDUFFIE, from the Committee of Ways and Means, reported the following bill:

Mr. SPENCER replied to the objections which had been urged, on a former occasion, to this proposition, contending for the established value of the information contained in the report the great importance of diffusing it through the country, inasmuch as silk might be successfully cultivated in every part of the Union-the great value to the country of that culture, and the importance of encouraging it by the distribution of instruction in the various processes of the art; to show all which, he adduced various facts and arguments, and a number of respectable authorities. Mr. S. concluded by offering a modification of the resolution, by order of the Committee on Agriculture, proposing to print thousand copies of the

report.

Mr. HAYNES, of Georgia, moved that the resolution and the amendment be laid on the table; and the question being put, the motion was negatived: yeas 71, nays 92.

Mr. POLK then rose to speak on the subject, but the expiration of the hour cut off further debate.

SATURDAY, May 22.
Culture of Silk.

The House resumed the resolution modified yesterday by Mr. SPENCER, to read as follows:

Resolved, That six thousand copies of the report of the Committee on Agriculture, made to this House on the 13th of March last, with the commu"Be it enacted, &c. That, from and after the 30th and manufacture of silk, and the like number of nication accompanying the same, on the culture day of September, 1830, the duty on molasses shall copies of essays on American silk, by Messrs. Peter be five cents per gallon, and no more; and from S. Duponceau and John D'Homergue, recently puband after that time, there shall be allowed a draw-lished, be printed for the use of the House. back of four cents upon every gallon of spirits distilled in the United States or the territories thereof, from foreign molasses, on the exportation thereof to any foreign port or place, other than the dominions of any foreign State immediately adjoining the United States, in the same manner, and on the same conditions, as before the tariff of May the 19th, 1828."

The bill being read the first and second time, Mr. MCDUFFIE moved that the bill be engrossed for a third reading.

A call of the House was moved, and ordered, but suspended before the Clerk had got through the roll.

Mr. WICKLIFFE moved to lay the bill on the table, and asked for the yeas and nays on the motion; which being ordered,

The question was taken, and the motion decided in the negative: yeas 55, nays 120; and The bill was ordered to be read a third time, by a large majority.

Culture of Silk.

The House resumed the consideration of the resolution reported by Mr. SPENCER, of New

Mr. POLK opposed the resolution, on the ground that there was no more propriety in printing, and paying for, out of the contingent fund of the House, instructions in the art and mystery of cultivating silk, than in printing and distributing the American Farmer, Taylor's Arator, a work on Farriery, or any other treatise on any branch of rural economy, &c.

Mr. CHILTON also opposed what he considered taxing the community some two or three thousand dollars, to print books for the use of the members, and to distribute amongst their friends; and argued generally against the practice of voting money out of the Treasury for the purchase of books for private use. He had no doubt when the people recovered their senses-recovered from that convulsion, that apoplexy, in which they had been thrown by political demagogues, they would rectify this sort of retrenchment and reform. He concluded a number of remarks of the like effect, by moving to lay the resolution on the table, but withdrew it at the request of

Mr. SPENCER, who argued to show that the